


One Last Lie

by boxparade



Series: All The Pretty Things That We Could Be [2]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Break Up, Cheating, I WILL FIX IT, Lies, M/M, Marriage, Parenthood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-23
Updated: 2012-07-23
Packaged: 2017-11-10 13:27:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/466806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boxparade/pseuds/boxparade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony wants to fight it. Because this—this isn’t what he wants. Maybe it’s what needs to happen, and maybe it’s what should happen, but it isn’t what he wants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Last Lie

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. I PROMISE I WILL FIX IT.  
> 2\. Basically every short that I write now is part of a larger universe. This is no exception.

Tony lies flat on his stomach, legs bent at the knees and hovering in the air, propped up on his elbows with his back arched, the sheet barely draped over his lower half. He watches with hungry, contemplative eyes as Steve slowly shrugs on his jeans, running a hand through his sex-mussed hair and looking around the room for his shirt. Tony thinks it’s in the other room. They had started on the couch, after all, even if they migrated to the bathroom and then the bedroom.

He doesn’t know what possesses him to say it. He hadn’t even realized it was something he’d been considering until it’s out there, spreading through the space between them with a heavy airlessness. Suddenly, he can’t breathe. He can’t move. All he can do is watch as Steve turns to stare at him, and it floors Tony when he realizes Steve isn’t surprised. He isn’t even really upset, just…resigned. And already Tony knows that this has been a long time coming, and that this needed to happen. They couldn’t keep on this path. He’s doing the right thing…right?

“Yeah,” Steve admits quietly, blue eyes scanning up and down Tony’s body, drinking it in like a thirsting man in the desert. “You’re probably right.”

 _No, I’m not,_ Tony wants to say. He wants to fight it. Because this—this isn’t what he wants. Maybe it’s what needs to happen, and maybe it’s what should happen, but it isn’t what he wants. Tony isn’t good at not getting the things he wants.

He wants _Steve._ He doesn’t want this to end. Whatever ‘this’ is, whatever the hell they think they’ve been doing these past three years… It means more to Tony than he’d ever admit. It means more to him than his marriage, and that right there is a knife to the heart.

Pepper never deserved any of this. She deserves everything. But Tony doesn’t think he can be the one to give it to her, anymore. He never should’ve tried. But as much as he’s hurt her, and as much as he knows he’s going to break her heart with this, he can’t bring himself to regret it.

Because Steve. Standing there, looking down at him with that familiar mix between determination, love, and something else entirely—something like guilt. It’s the guilt that will kill them, in the end. If it weren’t for the guilt, they wouldn’t be having this conversation. They wouldn’t be ruining the one real thing Tony’s had in his life since…a long time.

His entire life has been filled with falsity. His family, his business ethics, his marriage. Everything he’s ever had in his life has been tainted with something darker, something twisted and ugly. His father never loved him. All the clean energy in the world won’t bring back the lives his weapons took. Pepper—God, Pepper.

That’s his worst sin of all. Doing this to her. Hurting her like this. Because their marriage may not be real, not to him, but he loves her. He truly, truly loves her, and it kills him to have to tear that away from her. All so he can…what? So that he can lose both Pepper and Steve? The lie that he loves and the truth that he fears, but can’t live without.

How the hell did he wind up here?

Steve breaks their gaze first, turning away silently and padding toward the bathroom door, collecting his clothing as he goes. Tony bows his head and lets it hang loosely, pulling at his shoulders as he tries to draw in enough breath to get this out. He’s got minutes, maybe. Mere minutes before Steve walks out that door and doesn’t come back. Before he loses the one thing he needs, the only thing he’s ever needed, without even trying.

He bites his lip until he tastes copper, and then he looks up with sharp, hard eyes. “I’m going to tell Pepper.”

He can tell immediately that Steve wasn’t expecting that. His body goes rigid, shoulders tense and drawing up, steps faltering, fingers curling hard around the wood of the doorframe to the bathroom. It’s gone almost as soon as it’s there, and Steve just continues into the bathroom like he hasn’t heard. Like his entire world isn’t falling apart just like Tony’s is, right now.

“Is that so?” He says mildly, running his toothbrush under the water before he puts toothpaste on it. And Jesus, this is the whole reason that they can’t keep doing this, for fuck’s sake. Steve has a toothbrush here. _His_ toothbrush. He has clothing in the drawers, and hair gel by the sink, and a bowl by the front door where he puts his keys. They built a fucking life together on a lie.

“We can’t keep doing this, Steve. It’s killing us. We’re living four fucking lives between the two of us and I’m too damn old.”

Tony can see the corner of Steve’s lips twitch upward around the toothbrush, even from here, and he doesn’t know whether to be angry or affectionate about it. They both wait until Steve is done brushing his teeth, rinsing his mouth out and placing his toothbrush back in the cup with unusual delicacy.

“Well, good luck,” he says with a bitter smile that Tony only sees half of, studying Steve as he wipes his mouth on the towel and reaches for a comb.

And suddenly, Tony is furious.

“Is this a fucking joke to you?” He snaps, staring hard lines straight at Steve, unwavering. He feels his jaw set even though his entire body is rigid with tension, and his mind is telling him to run like hell before this all blows up in his face. If he walks away now, maybe he won’t lose this. But he can’t stop. “Is what we have—”

“And what do we have, Tony?” Steve shouts, spinning to face Tony with fire in his eyes. His hand is gripped so tightly around the comb that Tony expects it to snap. “An arrangement? A relationship?” Tony physically jolts at the word, face turning away from Steve as if he can soften the blow. “How the hell do you suppose we have a relationship when you go home to your wife and kid after I’m finished fucking you?” Tony winces. “Literally _everything_ we have is built on a lie.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Tony offers.

“Yes, it does!” Steve yells, throwing the now broken comb to the floor and charging a few steps forward before he stops, fists clenched at his sides, glaring daggers at Tony. Tony stares back icily. “This goes public and I lose everything.”

“Not everything.”

“Everything important,” Steve snaps back casually, as if he isn’t ripping Tony’s heart out and squeezing out the life.

“What the hell are you so afraid of?” Tony asks, voice raised.

“That’s a stupid fucking question,” Steve answers drily and stalks out of the room. Tony scrambles out of bed, hurriedly pulling on the first pair of pants he can find and rushing out after him, still seething.

“God damn it, Steve!” Tony shouts after him, finally careening into the kitchen to see Steve pouring himself a cup of coffee. His fingers are white around the handle of the pot, and every movement is agonizingly tense. “We’re adults! Why the hell are we sneaking around like teenagers?”

“Don’t you get it?” Steve retorts back viciously, pinning Tony with harsh, blue eyes. “I. Will lose. _Everything._ ”

“Except me,” Tony finishes, almost gently. He barely catches the flash of compassion in Steve’s eyes, the brief second of emotion that sparks some kind of hope in Tony, makes him believe that they really could make this work. They could be so much together.

But Steve can’t see it; refuses to see it, so he just powers on, lining his forward march with barbed wire, trying to hurt Tony—maybe so it won’t hurt as much when he leaves, or maybe because he actually wants to. “People need more than fuck buddies,” Steve says darkly, almost reveling in the way Tony draws back like Steve hit him. “People need friends, and spouses, and families.”

“We can be—”

“What, Tony?” Steve cuts him off. “We can be what? A family? A real family?” Steve pauses for an answer that Tony refuses to give. He just crosses his arms and tilts up his chin defensively. “Or have you forgotten that you already have one of those?”

Tony’s chest constricts as all the air rushes out of it quick as if he’d been punched. _Fuck._ Of course he hasn’t forgotten—but god, it’s not—it’s different. Peter means everything to him, is the center of Tony’s world, but Pepper… He loves her. He just doesn’t love her like he’s supposed to. It’s not the way it’s meant to be. And Tony has to believe that Peter will be better off without that kind of poison in his life. He doesn’t need to grow up under the dark cloud of Tony’s deception. He’s the whole fucking reason that Tony’s doing this at all.

“You will lose Pepper. You could lose your job, your home, your reputation,” Steve sneers at the last one, then sobers up again as he stares straight back at Tony. “You could lose Peter.”

Tony feels his eyes well up, and he curls his fingers into fists to keep from breaking, because now is not the time. “I know,” he says, brokenly, and ducks his head.

There’s a quiet, fragile moment that passes then, and Tony can sense the way Steve’s emotions shift. The anger rushes out of him and dissipates, and his shoulders drop. His hands unclench and stretch themselves, and his eyes soften. “So then why?” He asks, calm, gentle. Loving.

“Because I love you,” Tony answers simply, and his breath catches. Oh. _Oh._ Jesus, when did that happen? He hadn’t known—hadn’t even known he was going to say it, or that it was true, until right that second. And it is true. As soon as it’s out, he feels like a weight just lifted from his chest. Like he’s breathing right for the first time. He loves Steve.

“Tony—” Steve starts, but Tony cuts him off with a sharp shake of his head.

“Don’t.”

“Tony—” Steve tries again, and before Tony can turn away and flee the room, he closes the short distance between them and crushes Tony in a hug, cheeks pressed together and breath blowing quietly near Tony’s ear.

He hesitates, but he brings his arms up to rest gently at Steve’s hips, his touch feather-light and his mind reeling. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. None of this was supposed to happen.

God, the last _three years_ weren’t supposed to happen, and yet he can’t imagine living without it. Without this. Because he’d been quietly suffering, slowly but surely dying without even knowing why, and then there was Steve. And as fucked up as this entire mess is, he needs it. Needed Steve to come in and screw everything up just enough to save him.

“Please,” Tony whispers, pressing his face to Steve’s neck, breathing him in just in case. Just in case this is it. Just in case. “Please, Steve,” he says again, pressing fingerprint marks into Steve’s hips, as if he can make him stay if he just hangs on tight enough.

Steve’s breath catches, just for a moment, and Tony thinks _This is it._

“I’m sorry,” he answers, “I can’t.”

And then his arms slowly loosen and his body slips away from Tony’s. He pauses, brushing barely-there fingers over Tony’s lips and following with a soft, chaste kiss.

He’s gone before Tony can even open his eyes.


End file.
